Yoga Teacher Confidential: Secrets of Becoming a Great Yoga Teacher
Yoga Teacher Confidential is your backstage pass to the unspoken truths of being a yoga teacher. Sage Rountree, PhD, E-RYT500, dives into the real challenges and rewards of teaching yoga, offering expert advice and secrets to help you build confidence, connect with your students, and teach with authenticity. Sage draws on her two decades of experience teaching yoga, running a studio, and training teachers to share practical insights you can use right away. You'll also hear advice from her books, including Teaching Yoga Beyond the Poses, The Art of Yoga Sequencing, and The Professional Yoga Teacher's Handbook. Whether you’re navigating imposter syndrome, mastering classroom presence, or refining your skills to teach specialized niches like athletes, this podcast empowers you to lead your classes with clarity, grace, and ease.
Yoga Teacher Confidential: Secrets of Becoming a Great Yoga Teacher
52. Medical Emergencies in Class, Part 3: When the Emergency Is Yours
Emergencies happen in yoga class—and sometimes the emergency is mine. In this third installment of the series, I share practical steps for handling sudden illness, a coughing fit or lost voice, migraines, or a panic spike while I’m teaching. You’ll hear real stories, what I say to students in the moment, and how I decide whether to simplify, deputize help, or end early. The goal: care for myself so I can care for others, while modeling the self-management we teach.
This episode completes our three-part series on medical situations in class:
- E34: Medical Emergencies in Class, Part 1 — Class-Stopping Issues
- E40: Medical Emergencies in Class, Part 2 — Handling Minor Issues without Stopping Class
- E52: Part 3 — When the Emergency Is Yours (this episode)
Listen in for:
- A grounding reminder: it’s just yoga
- Quick triage questions to guide your next move
- Language to be transparent without oversharing
- Simple ways to keep students safe while you stabilize
- Why if/then planning helps you stay calm and professional
Emergencies are never easy, but with preparation and perspective, we can meet them with grace and keep our community safe.
Want to become (almost) everyone's favorite yoga teacher? Get in the Zone at Comfort Zone Yoga, my virtual studio focused on teacher development. I have a ton of Sage advice in there for you—let's chat there!
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And come explore my mentorship program, my Yoga Class Prep Station membership, continuing education workshops and 300/500-hour teacher training programs, and my many books for yoga teachers. It's all at ...
Can I tell you something? Even the most experienced yoga teachers get sick during class sometimes it happens to all of us, and while it feels mortifying in the moment, it's just a blip in your teaching career. In this episode, I'll share some practical advice for handling those uncomfortable moments when you were the one having the emergency, whether it's sudden nausea, migraine, or losing your voice mid cue. I'm Sage Rountree, and this is Yoga Teacher Confidential: Secrets of Becoming a Great Yoga Teacher. Before I dive into handling your own emergencies in class, I want to remind you of something really important. It's just yoga. Sometimes we, yoga teachers can get caught up in the idea that our students desperately need our class. That without us, they might not experience the healing benefits of yoga, or that we are somehow responsible for their wellbeing in this critical way. But the reality. While yoga is definitely beneficial, no one's life is hanging in the balance. If you need to cut a class short because you're suddenly ill, your students will survive. If they don't get their full 75 minutes of yoga on a particular Tuesday, they can always catch the next class or roll out their mat at home. So take a deep breath and let's talk about what to do when the emergency in class is yours. When the emergency is your own, when you are suddenly stricken mid class with acute nausea or bowel pain, or a coughing fit or a migraine, simply do your best. You know that tickle in your throat, that completely locks down your voice. The one where all you can do is swallow over and over. I've had that happen several times over the years, and always in the middle of class. I've had ocular migraines where my vision is overcome with shimmering light. That's kind of pretty, but makes it tough to balance. I've had the sudden onset of heat that convinced me I was coming down with the flu right then, and it turned out to be a hot flash more than once. I have a colleague who once put her students into a pose, ran from the room with morning sickness, then returned to continue on the second side. One of my teacher trainees told me they had a full blown panic attack during their first ever class. They were teaching. They put students in a child's pose and focused on their breath and the clincher. The students didn't even notice. This trainee asked one of the students, a friend of theirs, how bad it was, and the student didn't even know what they meant. Let's talk about what you can actually do when you find yourself in one of these uncomfortable situations. Here are some practical steps you can take. Number one, assess the situation. First, quickly assess how serious your situation is. Is this something you can power through like a minor coughing fit, or is this an urgent situation where you need to excuse yourself immediately and run for the bathroom? Trust your judgment. Number two, deputize If possible, if there's an experienced teacher or a student in the room who knows the regular flow of your class, deputize them to hold the space while you care for yourself. You might say something like, I'm not feeling well. I need a moment. Sarah, would you mind guiding the class through child's pose while I step out? If you don't know who might be qualified to help, you could simply ask, is there anyone here who has experience teaching yoga who could help guide the class for a moment? Number three, keep it simple. If you need to continue teaching but you aren't feeling a hundred percent, simplify your plan. Move to seated or reclined poses where you can also be seated. Cut sequences that require a lot of demonstration or complicated queuing. Perhaps guide students into a restorative pose or meditation that requires only minimal instruction from you. Number four, be transparent up to a point. You don't need to share graphic details, but a simple, I'm feeling a bit unwell, so we're going to modify our practice today. Feel free to make your own choices as we go. That's perfectly appropriate. Students appreciate authenticity and it models the self care that we often preach in yoga. And number five, know when to end class. It is okay for you to cancel class or end early if you're suddenly unwell, especially if you realize you're coming down with something that might be contagious. No matter how much your students appreciate how they feel after taking your class, none of them are in such dire need of yoga that they couldn't join the next class or next week's class. Okay. Remember, it's better to end class early than to push yourself to a breaking point or to potentially spread illness to your students. It's smart to pull in management. If there's a staffed front desk where you're teaching, alert them to what's up. Now, this serves two purposes. They can assist you if needed, and they can help manage students' expectations and questions after class. If you're teaching in a setting without support staff, simply do the best you can. It's also a good idea to follow up with management after the fact, especially if you did have to end class early. A quick email explaining what happened, shows professionalism, and helps them address any student concerns. One of my favorite quotes is from then, general Eisenhower when going into battle plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. Imagine a scenario in which you suddenly feel sick during class. How will you handle this? Write it out as one or more. If then statements. You may never need to use these plans, but if you do, having run them through in your imagination will be really useful. For example, if I feel nauseated, then I'll guide students into child's pose and excuse myself briefly. If I lose my voice, then I'll demonstrate more and speak less, or use hand signals. If I develop a migraine, then I'll dim the lights if possible, and simplify the remainder of class. There's a gift in these uncomfortable moments. They remind students that you are human to. In a world where yoga teachers are sometimes put on pedestals, showing vulnerability can actually strengthen your connection with students. Here's another quote, this one from Julia Child who gives inspiration to my mentorship membership, mastering the Art of Yoga sequencing, which takes some cues from her mastering the art of French cooking. Julia said the cook must simply grin and bear it. She instructed that if a dish goes wrong, you shouldn't twist yourself into knots of excuses and explanations. Such admissions only make a bad situation worse by drawing attention to your shortcomings. Similarly, don't over apologize. If you need to modify class due to illness, handle it with grace, make the necessary adjustments and move forward. Once the situation is resolved and you have taken a few deep breaths, send an email to your manager explaining what happened and the steps you took. This creates a record of the incident and demonstrates your professionalism in handling the situation. If you work for yourself without a manager to report to, it's still worth making some notes about what happened and what you learned from it. Remember that emergencies happen to everyone, including yoga teachers. Having a plan in place will help you handle these situations with grace, but the most important thing is to take care of yourself. The next time you face your own emergency during class, remember that you care for yourself so that you can care for others. Take a deep breath and trust that you can handle it. Your students will understand and you'll likely find that these moments of vulnerability only strengthen your teaching in the long. If you have stories about classes where you encountered the unexpected, bring them to the zone. It's our free community for yoga teacher development, a virtual teacher's lounge, and now over 1100 teachers strong. You can ask questions and swap stories there. I will be delighted to personally welcome you. Click the link in the show notes or head right to comfortzoneyoga.com. For now, I'm Sage Rountree, and this is Yoga Teacher Confidential. Thank you for listening, and I'll see you next time.
